Former Delhi top cop denies claim Dawood negotiated surrender

New Delhi: Former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar on Saturday denied reports attributed to him that fugitive terrorist Dawood Ibrahim had negotiated surrender with him months after the 1993 Mumbai blasts and that the government of the day scuttled the plans at the last moment.

Kumar, in an interview to a national daily published on Saturday, was quoted as saying Dawood, labelled by the US as Specially Designated Global Terrorist, had got in touch with him and wanted to surrender but the plan was shelved by the government.

Kumar, a 1976 batch IPS officer who retired as Delhi police chief in 2013, said he had not given the interview.

"It was an informal chat with the correspondent who is known to me for sometime. He has given the chat a slant which is both incorrect and unfortunate," he added

At no stage was D (Dawood) willing to surrender nor did anyone stop him from surrendering, he explained.

Kumar, who probed the 1993 Mumbai serial blast cases when he was a DIG with CBI, said, "He (Dawood) did speak with me but that was to give his defence in connection with Mumbai serial blast cases."

However, the denial flies in the face of his own comments at a book release function last month where he had made similar claims while referring to Dawood as a "certain gentleman" whom CBI had planned to "get at" with the help of "non-state actors" but the move was scuttled by his "political bosses".

On April 17, Kumar had backed Union Minister V K Singh when he said the Indian Army was capable of executing daring operations to avenge 26/11-like attacks by eliminating offshore criminals but certain "considerations" prevented it from doing so.